BATH, Maine — Most commercial fisheries in Maine are different from the lobster industry in one crucial aspect: annual catch totals have not consistently gone up over the past 20 years.
Landings for species such as shrimp, scallops, herring, urchins and many types of groundfish peaked in Maine in the 1980s and 1990s, which has led to economic challenges for fishermen as their costs increase and their catches decline. Even in Maine’s lobster fishery, which according to preliminary estimates may have hit a record high in 2011 of more than 100 million pounds, lower prices and rising expenses have put a crimp in the industry’s bottom line.
There is one new scallop dealer based in the midcoast area, however, who thinks she may be able to offset declining catches in that fishery with a new product. Togue Brawn, a former Maine Department of Marine Resources staffer, is the first dealer in Maine to get a special license to buy and sell scallops still attached to the shell. In December, she began buying scallops in the half-shell from half a dozen of Maine fishermen and then selling them to restaurants as a value-added product.
“It’s sort of a novelty,” Brawn said last week. “My goal is to get the fishermen more money.”
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